Requirements
The ultimate outcome of the project is to assist the NHS (NHS England and the UCLH Trust), especially for A&E department, to improve patient care through the use of new technologies and data gathered from multiple sources within the NHS. Initially, the project will require data regarding current hospital patients and anonymized statistics for each respective department. Hospitals currently rely on HES (Hospital Episode Statistics) for tracking patient turnovers and admissions, as part of the wider SUS programme. This source of data is high comprehensive and expected to be accurate and reliable, covering the entire NHS (England and Wales); any technical solution should make use of this where possible. Secondly, since the solution will make use of patient data, both anonymized and individual, there are certain legislations that the solution will have to comply with. The Human Rights Act 1998, Article 8, notes the individuals right to privacy. In the context of this project, the solution should respect this both in its physical implementation and with any data gathered. With regards to the latter, the Data Protection Act 1998 shall apply, providing further guidance on the storage and access of data. Conversely, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 shall apply with regards to making anonymized statistics available to the public. Finally, the solution should follow the relevant standards, both government and industry-wise. Examples of the latter include SNOMED CT, detailing all records with standard terms and codes, whilst that of the former may include compliance with recent ID Assurance efforts for authorizing data retrieval as currently developed by the Government Digital Service. Assumptions We are basing this project under these assumptions: #We are monitoring patients within the Critical Care Unit #There are 8 beds within the Critical Care unit #We are not taking into consideration of the Ambulance Unit #Data Protection must be enforced for all patients #Restrained budgets due to government cuts affecting the Health Trusts #Unit hygene standards must be kept high #Any tools has to be made with real time response Constraints #Finance: assuming this project will be based in a critical care at a health institute, there is a significant constraint in terms of the resources available for the project #Technology: the technology available is constrained by the budget as well as space available in the hospital environment, this would affect on the technology that we can bring in to the institute #Legislations: as this system is designed to be driven by patient data, therefore any data being processed must be anonymous and may require further filtering, this may also affect the overall deadline of the project #Hygiene: this is a major concern since we are designing this system for a Critical Care unit, the devices and hardware that we are require for this project should therefore be sanitised and must be easily cleaned #Ambulance: the project will be constrained within the Critical Care unit as ambulance care patients may not fall within the Critical Care bracket, hence the data would skew the more urgent data that we require